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BMW R nineT – 90 Years in the Making

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Officially official now, BMW Motorrad has taken the wraps off its new BMW R nineT cafe racer motorcycle. Helping the German brand celebrate 90 years of building motorcycles, the nineT is an air-cooled homage to BMW’s rich motorcycling past.

Based around the iconic 1,170cc air-cooled boxer engine that BMW has employed in a number of its best selling machines, the BMW R nineT is good for 108hp and 88 lbs•ft of torque.

With styling said to be based off the legandary BMW R32 from 1923, the nineT has more traditional cafe racer lines, mated to some of BMW’s best technology.

BMW hopes that the production model R nineT will be the basis for more custom builds though, citing the company’s collaboration with Roland Sands for the BMW Concept Ninety project as one such project to use the nineT’s roots for inspiration.

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Bikes

Leaked: Photos of BMW’s 90th Anniversary Café Racer

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It looks like BMW’s new air-cooled café racer has made an early, albeit brief, appearance on the internet. Photos of what we have been calling the BMW NineT appeared today on Italian news site La Repubblica, though the writers there called the machine the BMW R Nine. Unfortunately (for us) however, the article has since been taken down by the Italian publication.

With the NineT set to debut later today in Munich, these photos seem to be of the soon-to-be-released production model, and appear to be still shots for the machine’s upcoming press kit.

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Bikes

119 Hi-Res Photos of the BMW R1200GS Adventure

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The new BMW R1200GS is a capable off-road machine, something we discovered on our Broventure trip out to Moab, Utah. But what if you want something that’s really built for the trails, along with the road that gets you there? Well that’s where the BMW R1200GS Adventure has always come into play.

A new model from BMW Motorrad for the 2014 model year, the R1200GSA is finally here, and we’ve got a bunch of photos of it — 119 high-resolution photos, to be precise. Check them out after the jump.

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Bikes

The 2014 BMW R1200GS Adventure is Finally Here

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Earlier today, I was thinking of writing a story that would be titled “The Four Obvious Bikes that BMW is about to Debut” or something like that.

While that list would include the spied water-cooled BMW R1200RT, BMW S1000R, and BMW NineT machines, at the top of that list would be the BMW R1200GS Adventure, which is predictable extension of the new GS, which debuted last year. BMW, it would seem, has beaten me to the punch.

Officially official, the 2014 BMW R1200GS Adventure has broken cover now, and is ready for you to ADV on until your heart is content. Not only does the new R1200GSA do away with the oddities in BMW’s 2013 lineup, where the old “air-cooled” GSA sat next to the new “precision-cooled” GS, we really wish this bike had been available for A&R‘s recent Broventure.

C’est la vie, as the French would say. We’ve got all the changes, photos, and so forth for you after the jump.

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Bikes

Spy Shots: BMW NineT Spotted in the Wild

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At the EICMA show last year, BMW Motorrad announced that it would make another air-cooled model, in order to commemorate the 90 years that the German OEM has been producing two-wheelers.

Expected to be the production version of the company’s LoRider concept, we got our first taste of what BMW had in store for us with the BMW Concept Ninety — which had its retro goodness co-developed with America’s own Roland Sands.

Now seemingly ready for a true production model, BMW Motorrad has been caught testing the BMW NineT street bike inside the Lake Garda region in Italy.

Obviously fitted with the venerable 1,200cc air-cooled boxer twin that has made the GS and RT such steady steeds, the NineT uses classic motorcycle aesthetics, mated to classic BMW design pieces.

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Racing

BMW Motorrad ‘Strategically Realigns’ Itself out of WSBK

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Fresh on the team’s 1-2 victory at Moscow Raceway, BMW Motorrad has dropped a bomb on the World Superbike paddock, announcing that it would no long support a factory team in the production-based series — effective at the end of the 2013 season. In other words, Marco Melandri and Chaz Davies will be unemployed in a few months’ time.

Citing a “strategic realignment” of the company’s resources in motorsport, the move by BMW Motorrad is perhaps unsurprising, as zie Germans consolidated their WSBK efforts this year, with the factory supporting BMW Italia’s BMW Motorrad Goldbet SBK team, rather than fielding two efforts in the series.

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Bikes

Spy Photos: The BMW S1000RR Naked Bike Winks at Us

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That BMW is making a streetfighter version of its venerable S1000RR superbike is no secret, as we have seen the “BMW S1000R” naked bike already before from the lenses of Europe’s plethora of spy photographers. Today we get another glimpse of what zie Germans have been up to in their workshops, and what we expect them to debut at the EICMA show in Milan later this fall.

Caught head-on and from the side (see after the jump), we get a good look at what appears to be a final, or near final, headlight assembly, and true to BMW form, it is winking at us. From the side, we can see that the naked bike retains many of the S1000RR’s components, including its exhaust design. Of course, the real question will be what’s inside the cylinder casings.

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2014 BMW K1600GT Sport – Familiar, But Different

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BMW Motorrad has just released a bevy of minor changes to its 2014 motorcycle line, and amongst the facelifts and feature changes comes a “new” motorcycle from zie Germans. Unsurprisingly, the 2014 BMW K1600GT Sport is a take on the company’s flagship tourer, the K1600GT, but with a sportier, baggier, feel.

To be honest, we can’t help but think that the folks at BMW Motorrad saw the positive response that Honda had with the Honda Gold Wing F6B bagger conversion, and figured the same would work for them. If you can’t beat them, join them, eh? BMW junkies, we’ll want to hear your thoughts on this one.

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BMW K1600GT Hybrid 3-Wheeler Concept by Nicolas Petit

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Here at Asphalt & Rubber, we love the work of French designer Nicolas Petit — his Honda VTR1200 concept remains one of out all-time favorite concepts, and spurred me to think long and hard about the potential that the Japanese manufacturers could have in the two-wheel industry. Today’s post though, isn’t about a two-wheeler…it’s about a three-wheeler.

Pretty much the coolest trike we have ever seen imagined, Petit has once again inked a design for consumption, which features Bavaria’s favorite brand: BMW. Taking the 1.6L six-cylinder engine from the BMW K1600GT/GTL, Petit has mated a very recognizable front-end to his creation. The ultimate driving machine? We wouldn’t mind taking one for a spin around our local track.

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Bikes

Video: Streetfighter Version of the BMW S1000RR Spotted

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The eagle eyes over at the Italian magazine Motociclismo have caught BMW testing the naked-bike version of the BMW S1000RR out in Italy. A machine that has long been rumored, and expected to be the encore production of the Germany company’s very successful superbike project, the streetfightered RR is expected to have the same four-cylinder superbike motor, though likely in a lower state of tune.

Dressed in BMW’s typical black and white swirl camouflage, it is hard to see all the details of the new motorcycle, though the front fairing looks ahem interesting. Building off an already existing model, a naked RR is the logical next machine to come from zie Germans, and if it debuts as a 2014 machine, then we can expect to see it at the EICMA show in Milan later this year in November (there is no INTERMOT show this year).

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BMW Concept Ninety – Retro Meets Modern

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Late last year, we said that BMW Motorrad was working on a special air-cooled motorcycle to help commemorate the German company’s 90th anniversary of making motorbikes. Well, today we get to see what zie Germans have been up to, and it is called the BMW Concept Ninety.

Taking its cues from the BMW R90S, which itself turns 40-years-old today, the BMW Concept Ninety is debuting at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este and was designed by America’s own Roland Sands Design and the BMW Motorrad design team.

“The BMW R 90 S hails from an era in which bikers were regarded as outlaws,” said Edgar Heinrich, Head of BMW Motorrad Design, in the company’s press release. “There was something rebellious about it – it was fast, loud and wild. Pure emotion. And it has retained its fascination to this day.”

With that in mind, we turn our attention to the BMW Concept Ninety. Photos and video are after the jump of course, and leave your thoughts about the machine in the comments.

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